Sahana Ghosh

2 weeks ago | nature.com | Sahana Ghosh

In the misty hills of Meghalaya, researchers have uncovered new populations of Elaeocarpus prunifolius1, a rare relative of the prayer bead tree. The discovery, guided by machine-learning models, offers a glimmer of hope for the species. But with few mature trees, limited legal protection, and mounting logging and harvesting pressures, its future is precarious.

1 month ago | nature.com | Sahana Ghosh

A bacterium first discovered aboard the International Space Station (ISS) has now been linked to at least 13 human infections worldwide, including in India1. Scientists are racing to map the spread of Kalamiella piersonii, a multidrug-resistant microorganism that appears to have adapted seamlessly to both spaceflight and human hosts. “It’s a novel pathogen — not alarming, but worth tracking,” said Georgios Miliotis, a microbiologist at the University of Galway in Ireland.

1 month ago | nature.com | Sahana Ghosh

India’s first crewed deep-sea submersible, Matsya 6000, successfully completed wet tests in the Bay of Bengal earlier this month, marking a critical step toward its 2026 mission into one of Earth's least explored frontiers. Lowered 10 meters into the sea from a port in Chennai, the craft underwent eight submersions, half of them crewed, to assess its life-support and maneuvering capabilities.

2 months ago | nature.com | Sahana Ghosh

In a high-security data centre in northern India, genetic blueprints from 10,000 individuals across 83 ethnic groups are stored under layers of encryption. This vast dataset, collected through the country’s largest genomic sequencing exercise, could reshape the future of medicine and science for its citizens. The information is anonymized and double-blinded, ensuring that even researchers analyzing the data cannot trace sequences back to individuals.

2 months ago | nature.com | Sahana Ghosh

What began as a search for mineral-rich polymetallic nodules in the Central Indian Ocean Basin (CIOB) has revealed a hidden crisis — microplastic pollution at depths of 5,000 meters1. The accidental discovery by Indian researchers has sparked an investigation into how plastic waste settles in some of the most remote parts of the ocean.